Beware: Big cat is on the prowl

Nov 27 2006 Sally Williams, Western Mail

POLICE have warned walkers to be on their guard in hills above a Welsh village after several sightings of a "big cat".

Dyfed-Powys Police said seven people had reported seeing a large cat-like animal in the Talybont area, near Aberystwyth. They confirmed they had received photographs of the animal.

Wales is fourth on the list of big cat "hotspots" in the society's UK survey, according to recent figures by the British Big Cat Society (BBCS).

Danny Bamping, of the BBCS, said, "Big cats have been reported around that area before. There have been quite a few sightings across Wales and big cats are in the country without a doubt. I have not been chasing ghosts."

BBC programme-maker Aled Jones collated more than 100 sightings in North and Mid Wales over an 18-month period.

While the South West proved a hot-spot for sightings, with Devon, Cornwall and Somerset all featuring in the top 10 big cat locations. Scotland came in third, seeing almost a 50% drop in sightings reported, and was replaced at the top by Devon. Wales was fourth on the list with 123 reported sightings and incidents.

Almost 60% of all the sightings reported were of black cats and 32% were of brown or sandy-coloured ones, which the BBCS believes to be pumas. Another 6% were lynx-type cats.

There were 17 reports of a big cat with cubs - an increasing trend which suggests the animals may be breeding, according to the society.

In Wales, big cat sightings are investigated by the Welsh Assembly Government, in the form of the wildlife management unit based at Aberystwyth.

Chart-toppers' chiller - Daily Post North Wales

Chart-toppers' chiller - Daily Post North Wales

Nov 27 2006 By Steve Bagnall

A CHART-TOPPING girl band were left petrified after going ghost busting for a TV show at a haunted North Wales manor house.

The singers from Girls Aloud got the fright of their lives when they spent the night at Plas Teg near Mold.

Cheryl Cole, Kimberley Walsh, Sarah Harding and Nicola Roberts joined spook hunter Yvette Fielding for a TV special at the infamous Jacobean mansion. It’s due to be screened on ITV2 next month.

The other band member, Nadine Coyle, refused to go inside at all.

The 400-year-old hall is said to be home to a horde of ghosts and has featured in numerous documentaries and articles.

Resident spooks are believed to include the home’s former owner, John Trevor, his wife Elizabeth and a mystery young girl.

The notorious Judge Jeffreys is also connected to the hall, supposedly sentencing men, women and children to death by hanging in the dining room.

At first the four stars, whose recent hit Something Kinda Oooh stormed up the charts, were keen to take up the challenge of touring the property.

But no sooner had they set foot inside, Plas Teg’s spirits gave them rather too much to "ooh" about.

Within minutes Yvette hears knocking in the dining room.

Sarah starts to get emotional and claims she feels like she is standing in somebody’s grave.

The girls scream after huddling together with Yvette who asks if there is anybody there to be met with three apparent knocks

In the Regency Room all appears quiet.

But the supposedly haunted Panelled Room leaves Cheryl, married to England Chelsea soccer star Ashley Cole, in tears.

She gets hysterical, claiming somebody is prodding her, leaving the other girls in tears.

"This is not funny," she said: "This is really freaking me out. Why does he want to do that?"

Nicola decides she has overstayed her welcome and leaves.

But the others decide to go ahead with a planned seance.

A huge bang is heard behind them. Sarah is in floods of tears.

And then the table supposedly moves, leaving the girls admitting they do believe in ghosts.

Sarah said: "I was up for doing this, I still am but I don’t like the vibes in that."

Ghosthunting with Girls Aloud will be broadcast on ITV2 on December 12 at 9pm.

Police issue big cat alert

Nov 26 2006 Laura Kemp, Wales on Sunday

POLICE are warning people to be on their guard after receiving several reports and photographs of a big cat in the Mid Wales hills.

Dyfed-Powys cops said seven different villagers had described seeing a large cat-like animal in recent weeks in the Talybont area, near Aberystwyth.

Pc Pat Jalloal said the pictures of the big cat were inconclusive, but he urged caution.

"From the police's point of view, we have had a huge jump in reported cases in the past few weeks and we want people in the area to be aware of this," said Pc Jalloal. "Images received by the police look very similar to a big cat so we are asking people to stay vigilant."

Sightings are investigated by the Welsh Assembly Government, in the form of the wildlife management unit based at Aberystwyth.

Wales is fourth on the list of big cat 'hotspots' according to the British Big Cat Society.

Simon makes a go of ghost-hunting - Daily Post North Wales

Simon makes a go of ghost-hunting - Daily Post North Wales

PEOPLE with a taste for the paranormal are being recruited to help sniff out the ghosts of North Wales.

Spooks Paranormal Ltd investigates hauntings across South Wales and is looking to expand northwards.

The company, which also holds ghost hunts for the public, is now looking forward to tapping into the region’s rich mine of haunted houses.

Spooks, based in Bridgend, was set up three years ago by former retail manager Simon Curwood after he had a psychic experience.

Mr Curwood, 34, said: "I was in a church in Italy for a wedding and had a very strange experience.

"I saw this haunting figure and, quite frankly, I was gobsmacked. It then felt as if I was being hanged, and afterwards the whites of my eyes had turned bloodshot.

"Only later I learnt people had been hanged around there. It was like someone trying to tell me ‘right you’ve got this skill, what are you going to do with it?’. So I quit my job, £26,000 down the pan, to do this."
The company conducts investigations into the paranormal across Britain, with 170 probes carried out in three years.

One investigation in Somerset last week centred on a woman being thrown around her room by an invisible presence at night, with another in Essex helping out a man who regularly woke at night to find coins in his mouth.

Mr Curwood said his most shocking investigation was into a 6ft 2ins, 22-stone man thrown around a room in Bridgend.

Mr Curwood said: "A bit of our work is entertainment, in that we take in groups and take them on tours at haunted locations. But a lot of it is extremely serious.

"We are more and more keen to move into north and mid Wales too. Wales is very, very rich in haunted locations, just through the history of the place.

"Mid Wales can be a little sparse, but North Wales is very good with a lot of places of interest. We want people to let us know the places they feel are worth investigating."

The company now employs 27 staff, mostly part-time, and Mr Curwood is looking to recruit 23 more staff for north and mid Wales. Mr Curwood is looking to recruit five area managers, five mediums, three technical staff and 10 senior investigators in north and mid Wales, most for part time work.

Anyone interested can contact Mr Curwood on simon.curwood@btinternet.com

'I have never been so glad to see the back of a pub!' - icWales

'I have never been so glad to see the back of a pub!' - icWales

Oct 31 2006 Gareth Rogers, South Wales Echo

Echo reporter braves ghosts of old inn's haunted cellar With Halloween looming, we sent reporter Gareth Rogers reports on his experiences in a haunted hostelry… Ghosts have always been something that happen to other people.

But just stepping through the creaky door of the Maltsters Arms in Pontypridd, I knew it was time to finally confront my ignorance.

The spooky building, built in the early 1800s, shows its age and has all the features of a great ghostly den.

I was encouraged to visit the Maltsters by Clare White of the South Wales Paranormal Research team.

She told me: 'That place is spooky. We spent a whole night in the cellar because we had heard that a white lady paces around there at night.'

Manager Sarah Gleeve was very eager to introduce me to her cellar-dwelling lodger.

She said: 'I have never seen the ghost, but I have heard all about it and a lot of staff have been scared to go down the cellar on their own in the past.

'The previous managers had the pub for 30 years and the wife would never go down there alone.'

Slightly concerned that this mystical being was lurking in a dark corner of the pub's cellar, I sought re-assurance from some of the locals.

Kim Jenkins, 21, used to work in the pub and is still a regular.

She said: 'I have heard that the pub used to be a hotel and the cellar is actually where the maid's chamber used to be.

'Many people believe that the white lady might be a maid from the hotel.

'While I was working here, I remember seeing something that creeped me out.

'I could feel something following me down the stairs and I looked back and saw a hand on the rail.

'It faded away but it was very scary.'

As I was about to run back out of the door, Sarah grabbed me and marched me down the creaky staircase to the cellar.

Stood in near darkness, I shook every time a passing car caused the rickety window to vibrate.

Sarah pointed to the fire escape and said: 'That is where she goes, she walks across the floor from left to right.'

Intrigued, I watched each flicker of light shine through the window for as long as I could - until I can honestly say I was too spooked to stay there.

I could smell the damp in the ancient brick and feel a cold draught running through the middle of the bar.

Every time the pub's main doors closed, the vibration reverberated through the whole building.

As I took refuge upstairs, every door slamming and floorboard creaking reminded me that something - or someone - could be watching me.

I finally started to doubt my own scepticism when the barman crept up behind me to take my glass, sending a shiver through my spine.

And before you ask, that was not a fear of having to buy another round.

If there was a real ghoul, she did not make herself known to me - but I've never been quite so glad to leave after an evening in the pub.

De Niro latest film in Brecon Beacons

Oct 29 2006 Nathan Bevan, Wales on Sunday

THERE may not have been any Raging Bulls, but there were plenty of sheep to watch Oscar- winning legend Robert De Niro filming his brand new movie in the Brecon Beacons.

The Taxi Driver star is said to have swapped the Hollywood hills for the high peaks of mid-Wales for his role as swashbuckling 'sky pirate' Captain Shakespeare in a major new fantasy blockbuster called Stardust.

Adapted from Neil Gaiman's best-selling fantasy novel, the flick also features a glittering cast of Tinseltown royalty like Peter O'Toole and Michelle Pfeiffer, not to mention the first foray into moviedom by The Office funnyman Ricky Gervais.

Despite production details being kept tightly under wraps, we can reveal Stardust tells the tale of a young man who promises his beloved that he'll retrieve a fallen star by venturing into a magical realm where he encounters Pfeiffer's evil witch and De Niro's pirate.

Meanwhile, Gervais - who admits spending the duration of his main scene in the movie trying to make his hero De Niro laugh - has described his character of Ferdy The Fence as a "kind of Never Never Land Arthur Daley".

The cast and crew spent a week during this summer on location shooting around Llyn Y Fan Fach, a 20,000-year-old glacial lake near Ystradfellte in the breathtaking National Park.

The stretch of water - whose name translates to 'small lake of the peaks' - was chosen due to it's mythical connections, shrouded as it is in Celtic legend and purported to be the location where the lady of the lake handed the sword Excalibur to King Arthur.

The movie's director and producer Matthew Vaughan, who worked with Guy Ritchie on Lock Stock And Two Smoking Barrels and is married to supermodel Claudia Schiffer, was full of praise for the National Park's stunning scenery.

He said: "The Brecon Beacons is a hidden gem and just a fantastic location for us to film Stardust. Its dramatic landscape and sweeping views were just perfect for us and made it a pleasure to shoot there."

Stardust, produced by Paramount Pictures, will hit British cinemas next summer.

A spokeswoman for the film giant said: "The stars of Stardust did descend on Wales for filming during the summer.

"As well as shooting in Wales, we also shot all over the UK. The stars loved Wales."

Is there a ghost of a chance that spooks really DO exist? - icWales

Is there a ghost of a chance that spooks really DO exist? - icWales

Oct 28 2006 Gareth Rogers, South Wales Echo

Most people think of ghosts as phantom beings who rise from the ground to scare the living.

But a scientific search for an explanation has challenged the traditional image of ghouls as apparitions of dead people or white spirits.

Opinions of what really lurks behind ghosts, however, remains divided.

University of Glamorgan psychology lecturer Janet Pitman said science dismisses the traditional theory that ghosts are people who have moved into the afterlife.

'This is all based on a cultural opinion of what people expect to see,' she said. 'Whenever people have visions of ghosts they are always fully clothed. I would be surprised if their clothes had an afterlife too.'

Although Andy Mercer, of the Institute of Paranormal Research, says paranormal experts general accept it as a possibility.

'This theory says ghosts are souls who have lived and died on this earth,' he said.

'It says that their intelligence, personalities and emotions on earth have survived the death process.'

However, the study of the paranormal has come up with other theories to explain ghost sightings.

One such theory is called the stone tape theory, which claims the magnetic pull of old buildings can trap sounds of past events.

Andy said: 'There is a possibility that buildings, rocks or earth are able to absorb energy from living beings who inhabit them.

'Later, under certain conditions, that energy or signal can be replayed, rather like a video tape.

'Most typical hauntings have a very emotion-laden scene, like a murder.

'It is this scene that has somehow become imprinted or recorded in the environment.'

A third theory is that the human concept of time is not as stable as people believe it to be, with past events becoming stuck in time and replay themselves in the afterlife.

'When people cross over to the other side they have a life review that follows everything they did,' Andy said.

'Their spirits travel along a smooth timeline until they hit a pothole.

'They become stuck in that pothole until they are removed by someone on earth.'

But from a scientific point of view, there is only one theory with any evidence - the idea that ghosts are just figments of a person's imagination, however real they might seem.

'We prefer to look at what experiences people have and how it affects their mind,' Janet said.

'Things like hallucination and illusion tend to explain most sightings.'